


winning your heart is a wild goose chase

by wittywhisper



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Love Confessions, Magic, Obliviousness, Road Trips, bothersome geese, the great canadian wilderness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:55:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26126113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wittywhisper/pseuds/wittywhisper
Summary: “What do you want?” Addie asks, door swinging open to reveal her standing there in a baggy sweater that’s too warm for the last days of July. Her voice isn’t rude, or accusatory, just quiet and toneless.“I want you to come to Canada with me."Unlike in the park, this time it’s Addie who’s caught completely off guard. “What?”(In which love is more complicated than it needs to be and road trips really are the ultimate solution.)
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6
Collections: Carry On Big Bang 2020





	winning your heart is a wild goose chase

**Author's Note:**

> recommended listening: "Is It Real" by Bombay Bicycle Club or "With My Whole Heart" by Sufjan Stevens
> 
> [here is the art made for this collaboration!](https://i.imgur.com/iof0G9a.jpg)  
> check out the amazing artist, Abby, [on tumblr!](https://hufflepunky.tumblr.com/)
> 
> thank you the wonderful mods of the carry on big bang- double thanks to Si for beta-ing this! lots of love <3

“…Faire au moins mille fois que j'ai compté mes doigts…” Soraya spins around her bedroom, headphones over her ears as she sings along to the music. She moves in time with the beat, pulling open a drawer and gathering all the tops and t-shirts into her arms. Not all the tops that she owns, of course- there are at least a dozen more in the drawer above, and some are already strewn across the floor. Packing for university in Ottawa has to start somewhere, and in this case it begins with emptying her closet onto her bed.

Well, that’s the plan, but before she can get there one of her dance moves takes her foot right into the large, flower patterned suitcase on the ground. 

“Ow, fuck!” Soraya exclaims as she falls to her knees with the impact. Her headphones slip off and hit the hardwood flooring, too, one of speakers snapping right off from the headband. She sits on the floor, disgruntled, and reaches up to grab her wand. It’s not the first time she’s had to cast **as good as new** on them, but it’s annoying every time because they’re always full of static for a few hours after. One of these days she’ll find a better spell.

Before she can stand back up, the family dog, Markus, has trudged up into her room as fast as his old legs can take him, nosing at her side. Probably concerned about her fall, he’s placated with a reassuring pat on his silky black fur. Predictably, her cat Holly is unperturbed, likely still lounging on the couch downstairs.

With her parents at work as always and no siblings around, Soraya’s company besides the pets is the hanging plants decorating the walls. There are a lot of them- it’s a shame she won’t be able to take them with her, but she can take the pots and buy some new ones. Her plans for everything she’ll need to decorate her dorm room are laid out on a spreadsheet. “If you don’t plan ahead, then the aesthetic will be all over the place,” Addie had said, playing off Soraya’s weak spot for nice interior design to trick her into being organized.

Her room here at home is painted pale green with white accents and furniture. She’s put a lot of work into it, so obviously she’s not letting her parents make it into anything other than a guest room once she’s gone. But her parents are too busy to take care of all her plants- which means another neat list to figure out who she can gift them to before she leaves. The tidy plans are all very unfamiliar and unwelcome, but leaving home was her choice after all.

What she is going to take with her are some of the framed photos arranged on the wall above her bed. Some are from Watford, her and her best friend Addie all over the school. One of them is even set in the tunnels underneath the grounds, a selfie taken with Soraya’s wand lit up using **light of day**. Soraya’s own skin is dark, but Addie is so pale that in the picture she almost looks like a vampire. It would be ominous if their goofy grins didn’t ruin the creepy atmosphere. Addie had been scared of going down there, until Soraya had cracked enough jokes to make her comfortable.

Other photos are from the summer- her favourite is of the time she spent with her dad’s parents in Paris, when Addie joined them halfway through the trip. The time with her grandparents had been great, because she hardly gets to see them during the year. But exploring the city with her best friend had been even better.

With the photos and plants gone, the room is certainly going to miss its charm. First things first, though- packing clothes. She has a little less than four weeks to figure out what she’s taking and how she’s taking it, so it’s high time she started after putting it off since the end of June.

Soraya spreads out the tops across her striped bedspread. Half of them are colourful patterned t-shirts and button ups, the others are plain in colour but with different cuts. She loves them all for the unique outfits she’s been putting together since she got into fashion during her second year at Watford, but she knows she can’t take everything.

After a few minutes of indecisive staring and humming along to music that’s now playing right from her phone speaker, she sighs and grabs that phone off her bedside table. She’s able to rule out a few shirts that are too boring, but she can’t do this on her own. Tapping on Snapchat, she takes a picture of the shirts and sends a snap to Addie with the question _‘which ones’._

The response is quick- _‘this is the third time you’ve asked me that just this afternoon.’_

_‘bzzt not a valid choice’_

_‘you’re more into fashion than I am, why is it so hard for you to pick?’_

_‘bc if i were properly going for style here i’d have to take them all!! smh’_

_‘maybe you need to take a break. we can get ice cream?’_

_‘yes pls pick me up i’m gonna go mad’_

Soraya is incomprehensibly glad to have a friend like Adelaide. Usually during the school year Soraya was the one convincing her roommate and best friend to take a break (re: physically dragging her away from her books), but right now Soraya’s the one that’s stressed.

Addie has it all figured out, after all- she’s loved magic her whole life, and now she’s going to the University of Manchester to get a degree in linguistics. On the path to write a comprehensive modern compendium on spells across England, or something like that.

Yup. That’s her plan. Meanwhile, Soraya is moving to another country across the Atlantic to start as an undeclared major at Carleton because she has no idea where she wants to go in life, and she’s not quite good enough at anything, especially not magic-

Well, enough of that. She should probably get properly dressed instead of wearing her pyjamas out of the house. Though getting dressed, as she’d pointed out to Addie, is infinitely easier when she has a full closet to choose from. Addie’s rebuke had been that Soraya has yet to pack enough that her options are limited, which- fair, but annoying. She unpacks nearly everything she’d already done up until now anyways, trying to find a soft and breezy purple shirt that turns out to have been on her bed the whole time. She exits the house ten minutes later, after letting Markus out into the backyard for a bit, to find Addie waiting for her.

It really is a perfect day for ice cream, sunny and cloudless. The light glints off the side of Addie’s boring but reliable silver car that’s parked along the street. Her parents got it for her almost a year ago, a gift that came just in time for Soraya and Addie to take it down to Watford for the start of their eighth year.

“Finally. I was afraid I lost you to your suitcase, like the wardrobe to Narnia,” Addie chirps as she starts the car and pulls away from the curb.

“Haha, very funny. Speaking of suitcases, how would you feel about hiding in mine and coming with me to Canada to help me figure my life out?”

“So, coming with you to do exactly what I do now, except you won’t be paying for ice cream because you’re going to be a broke uni student? I’ll pass.”

“Rude,” Soraya sulks. “I’ll still be able to pay for ice cream. Where are we going, anyways?”

“Reader Ice Cream Parlour! We’re a few hours removed from lunch so the line shouldn’t be too long.”

“I hope you’re right. I wonder if I could get a few pictures for the blog- last ice cream in England, or whatever.” Soraya runs a food, or lifestyle, or plant blog- what she posts really depends on her mood. So maybe it doesn’t have much of a theme at all, but the Instagram she runs for it does have thousands of followers who are obviously going to be interested in her move.

“You could still have ice cream again over the next four weeks. And it’s not as if you’re never going to have ice cream when you come back to visit. In fact, I can already see you insisting on ice cream in the middle of winter.”

The assumption that Soraya is going to come back to visit, for the break between terms, strikes a nerve, though Addie doesn’t seem to notice. It’s a question she’s only brought up in murky, unspecific terms about how expensive the trip is, how busy her schedule will be- is she going to come back home at all? She doesn’t mean never coming home, of course, but maybe not for the first year or two. Not because she doesn’t love all her family and friends here, Addie included, but because she knows what the first question is going to be from her parents when she gets back. She knows it even though she hasn’t left yet, can hear it already: “So, have you picked a major? Have you decided what you want to do? Have you gotten a job? Do you think you’ll transfer to somewhere here in England? Somewhere a bit more... prestigious?”

Okay, so maybe it’s the first several questions, but when one of your work-obsessed parents is on the Coven and the other is in Normal politics, the questions that Soraya is predicting aren’t an exaggeration. Her parents are great, but they have high hopes for her, and she knows she’s not going to live up to them. Living up to expectations is Addie’s strong suit, not Soraya’s. There was a time when Soraya was supposed to be the perfect mage, but it turned out that for nearly a year she could barely coax a spark out of her wand.

And Soraya’s thoughts on her future with magic is another can of worms entirely, one she’s mentioned to Addie before but is not keen to open again on their way to the park. So instead of voicing anything, she just promises that they’ll do s’mores instead of ice cream in the winter and connects her phone to the car radio.

Like Addie promised, the line for ice cream isn’t long. Soraya gets the cotton candy flavour with rainbow sprinkles in a waffle cone while Addie just gets mint because she hates change and she’s lowkey like that. It’s not a bad thing, just funny after so many years to watch her unshakeable dedication to the same ice cream flavour every time they go out.

They walk along the main concrete path, past people playing games of frisbee and relaxing on the grass, to find a bench nearby where Soraya can sit down and take some nice pictures of her ice cream before she actually starts on it. She half wonders if getting hit by a frisbee would make the blog post for this more interesting, pictures of the ice cream before and after impact and all that.

She’s flipping through filters while Addie sits quietly, which isn’t unusual for her. Beyond her social anxiety, even with a close friend like Soraya, she just likes the comfortable silence. She’d confessed as much one night with her eyes fixed on the ceiling of their shared dorm room in the Cloisters. The room was lit only by scattered glow in the dark stars, stuck there with glued to the spot, a spell they’d learned a few days prior. Soraya had been trying to break the silence between them as Addie hadn’t said a word in hours. She never understood that it could be comfortable back then, just thought of it as awkward, was afraid she must be doing something wrong. Afraid Addie thought she was too loud or talkative or brash. But Addie had told her the truth, which she did a lot in that dorm room, their safe space. She liked the quiet, she said, and she liked Soraya because she didn't feel like Soraya was pressuring her to talk. Whether Soraya was talking or not, there was no pressure on Addie, just a comfort in knowing she didn’t need to say anything. She’d realized it earlier that day and had been trying to find the words for it all evening.

Then she speaks up, unprompted, eyes still looking out at the gently rolling hills of the park that are dotted with people, none close enough to hear them. “I need to tell you something.”

“Go for it,” Soraya says, tucking her phone into her pocket and catching the drips from her melting ice cream with her tongue.

“I’m in love with you.”

“I love you too,” Soraya responds immediately. She thinks nothing of Addie’s serious tone, still focused on eating her ice cream.

Addie laughs at that, unexpected and bright. “Holy shit. Holy shit.”

Now Soraya finally side eyes her, because she hardly ever swears, and takes in Addie’s wide grin. “Um, what?” 

“It was that easy? Confessing, just like that. Like, it’s out there now.”

“Confessing what?” Soraya is surprised. Usually it’s Addie who doesn't get her jokes, not the other way around.

“Confessing that I love you. And now we can be together, and we can make this work, and… holy shit."

“Okay, okay.” Soraya turns on the bench to face her best friend, ignoring her still melting ice cream which is starting to make her hands sticky as it seeps through the napkin around the cone. “I think I’m missing something. Make what work?”

“A relationship. God, I can’t believe I waited this long, wasted so much time-”

“Addie, Ads, Adelaide- a relationship? You’re my best friend, obviously, we were already making that relationship work. So what are you going on about?”

“Dating. That relationship.” The giddy smile is starting to slip from Addie’s face, making her look as confused as Soraya feels. Which, great- maybe now she’ll start talking in sentences that make sense. “I literally said I’m in love with you, and you said it back.”

Soraya is at a bit of a loss for words. She’s not sure where this is coming from, because obviously she loves Addie. She’s said it before, even if it isn’t that often. But it’s been at least a dozen variations of “love you too, loser”- in other words, strictly platonic. Then it strikes her that this is the only time Addie has said it first, and the pieces of the puzzle slowly start to come together in Soraya’s head. She licks her ice cream absentmindedly, trying to get the words right instead of just blurting something out as per her usual style of conversation, because this is important. Addie’s expression hasn’t changed, still caught between happiness and utter confusion.

“Addie, I know that me leaving is stressing you out. It’s coming up fast, way fast. But I won’t ever stop being your best friend. Being across an ocean is nothing, we’ll talk every day. So I get that you’re scared, and maybe you’d feel more comfortable with it if we were in a long distance relationship or… whatever, so that we’d feel closer. What you’re feeling is valid, but it’s a normal best friend thing, not a romance thing. Definitely not a dating thing.”

Addie’s smile is gone, her face almost blank, the kind of wall she puts in place when she’s feeling too much and she doesn’t know how to express it. Soraya knows she’s upset, trying to process her emotions, something she’s struggled with before- another confession made to a ceiling of glow in the dark stars. But Soraya doesn’t want to lead her on by trying to let her down any easier. It’s better to give her analytical mind a starting point from which she can organize the mess of feelings.

So Soraya throws what’s left of her ice cream cone in the rubbish bin by her shoulder and stands up. She knows Addie will feel safer at home, safe to untangle whatever’s going on in her head. Surely, with a bit of alone time, she’ll understand that she’s not romantically in love with Soraya. “C’mon, let’s go. I’ll drive.”

The drive home is awkward, Addie silent and fidgeting with her phone the whole way, Soraya not wanting to disturb her by turning on any music. Feeling horrid, she parks in the driveway of the house where Addie’s lived since she was five and opens the driver’s side door.

“You can call me whenever you need, Ads. I’m here to talk when you’re ready to.” Because it isn’t easy to know you'll be separated from someone you’ve become so dependent on, but that goes both ways, so Addie shouldn’t have to deal with it alone when Soraya’s struggling too. 

She hands Addie the car keys and gets out to walk home. She wonders, briefly, if Addie will say something. It’s not like they’ve never fought, because Soraya hates conflict but they’re still opposites in some ways so they won’t get along always. But the thing that makes their friendship so great is that the fights don't last long. Usually they make up at least a little bit before one of them even gets to leave the room. Yet this time Addie doesn’t even grab the offer of a phone call, Soraya’s olive branch, and that’s a little bit heartbreaking. Just a little. 

Until three full days later, when it hurts a lot more. Yes, Addie usually takes longer to deal with her emotions than Soraya, but three days of radio silence is unheard of between them. ‘A bit of alone time’ isn’t supposed to be three whole days. Soraya’s parents don’t know, so they don’t comment, just going on about her plans and her messy packing and the latest work incident. 

Soraya doesn’t even make a blog post about the ice cream. She posts an update in the series about her plant’s new homes instead and then buries herself in the notifications so she can think about anything other than ice cream and confessions and no longer comfortable silence. She texts Addie a few times, sending random updates on her clothing decisions- and then, when the label on the texts never changes to ‘read’, deleting the texts soon after. Addie probably doesn't want to see those kinds of updates, after all. It’s just another reminder that Soraya’s leaving and that whatever has gotten into Addie’s head about romance is not going to change that.

Right now, even Soraya wishes it would. She wishes she could go back in time and apply to a local university. It’s not even too late, probably, for some colleges, but that’s not in her parent’s big dreams for her. Or even in her own dreams, of getting away from England, from the bustling hub of magic, to a country where she can all but forget the ever pressing need to break the rules of their magickal world that say she can’t use what power she has to help people. Where she can learn to make a difference in a Normal way instead, as if she was never a mage in the first place.

God. She can see why Addie was scared of her cutting ties without a romantic relationship to tether her here. She’s probably been sounding like a nutcase whenever she tries to explain it, the war being waged in her head over giving up magic or not, since she was never good at it in the first place. That, and the fact that she’s avoided the topic of coming back to visit, hasn’t made any plans- and Addie’s a big fan of plans.

Which gives Soraya an idea that makes her bolt upright in her bed to grab her laptop. She can’t lay out a plan to come visit, not soon, but she can lay out a plan for how they could spend the last month before she leaves. And it’s maybe not a smart one, possibly too spontaneous, but it’ll definitely show Addie that no matter where either of them goes, they’ll be best friends for the long haul.

Soraya shows up to Addie’s house without warning the next day, which isn’t unusual. What is weird is the large duffel bag slung over her shoulder, proof that she can pack much faster when she really puts her mind to it. Addie’s dad, a mechanic who owns his own garage, is at work, but Soraya tries the door anyways. When it doesn’t open she presses the doorbell, letting it ring only for a second before she does it again, repeating the motion incessantly. She bangs her fist on the door for good measure- she can see Addie’s car in the driveway, she knows her nerdy friend is in there, curled up with a book most likely. She hates to walk anywhere, so if the car is here that means Addie has to be- 

“What do you want?” Addie asks, door swinging open to reveal her standing there in a baggy sweater that’s too warm for the last days of July. Her voice isn’t rude, or accusatory, just quiet and toneless.

“I want you to come to Canada with me.” 

Unlike in the park, this time it’s Addie who’s caught completely off guard. “What?”

“I’m going to Canada for a week… or something. For a road trip, y’know, see the sights before I’m tied down with school. I want you to come with me.”

“That’s…”

“Maybe we should sit down? Talk it over with some tea?”

“Yeah, that works,” Addie says. She looks a little faint, but she opens the screen door so Soraya can actually come in. She retreats to the kitchen table where, predictably, there sits a paperback and a plate of crumbs.

“A Guide to Birdwatching in Northwest England… you’re getting into birdwatching?” Soraya comments on the book’s title as she slides her duffel bag off her shoulder.

“No,” Addie replies, putting more biscuits on her plate. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Right,” Soraya says, because the answer is probably ‘no’, but Addie loves to learn about anything and everything regardless. She starts the kettle and drops teabags into two mugs, giving it about thirty seconds before she says, “So, what do you think?”

“What do I think of a road trip to Canada?”

“Not to, across. Don’t worry, I don’t plan to drive us into the Atlantic Ocean.”

Addie thumbs through her paperback, brows furrowed, like she has a lot of options but isn’t sure what to say first. “Do you really want me to come?” Is what she finally choses.

It’s not what Soraya was expecting. She thought there might be a lot more questions about the logistics of the trip first. But those questions would’ve been harder to answer- this one is easy. “Of course I do. I know I’m leaving for uni, and I don’t think that will change. And I’m not sure about a lot of things that come with leaving. But I do know that I want to leave knowing my best friend is still on my side, that we’ll be cheering each other on no matter what. I don’t want to leave quietly, feeling all doubtful and sad. So why don’t we go make some happy memories, first? Why don’t we make it exciting?”

Yes, Soraya has practiced that little spiel. She doesn’t want to mess this up. And she thinks it’s working, because Addie is smiling a bit. “I thought that eighth year prank was our last hurrah. Didn’t know you had another adventure in store.”

“I’ve always got more adventures, Ads.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay. When do we leave?”

Adelaide Murphy taking a risk? Not asking more questions, not picking apart the plan? It’s virtually unheard of. And Soraya’s not going to say that she loves this side of Addie better, because she loves every part of her best friend, but this is certainly a welcome change.

Not just because she really wanted, maybe needed, Addie to say yes. It's also because, well, there kind of was no plan.

It hasn’t even been a whole twenty four hours since she made up the plan. Obviously Soraya hasn’t figured out much besides the plane tickets and the cover story. She was planning to bullshit the responses to whatever Addie asked her, not to be mean, but just to say anything that would keep her best friend by her side for a little longer.

But hey, now she can bullshit it in real time!

The cover story is the only part that would’ve been difficult to do on the fly. Lucky for Soraya, her older brother texted back pretty quick when she asked if he’d tell their parents that Soraya and Addie were at his flat in Manchester for a week. He agreed, since he still owed her from the last minute birthday gifts for their parents which she wrote his name on out of pity. He even promised to write off the airfare charge on Soraya’s credit card as one of his friends needing a big favour while she was out with them. Obviously her parents don't want her travelling so far. Not just because the magickal world is still only eight months removed from everything that happened with The Mage and the Insidious Humdrum, but also because she’ll be going to ‘a place with an unstable vernacular and a reputation as a continent of chaos’.

And that’s a quote that came from both her parents, a Coven member and a politician in the Normal world. It had taken long enough to go through all the steps of making sure Canada’s capital was safe enough as a place to study abroad (and many “It’s fine, nowhere near as chaotic as the United States!” arguments- in the sense of being a mage and being Black, though the latter had been a separate conversation). It also took good enough grades in her last two years at Watford, with a lot of help from Addie, and the added safety net of finding a few other mages in Ottawa who could have her back if she ever got in trouble. And now Soraya’s about to fly there out of the blue, with very little money and her booksmart-but-not-so-streetsmart friend in tow. 

“It's going to be great,” she promises Addie as they get in Addie’s car two days later. Both their parents have been assured by Soraya’s brother, Francis, that his roommate was going to be gone so he had offered them a room for a summer getaway. For added security, they’re driving to Manchester and leaving the car with him, then taking a bus to the airport there. It’s all pretty good for Soraya’s “I’ve got a plan” storyline. Not so great for the whole moving out thing, because she took apart all her packing so far to put things into a carry-on suitcase. That, and the duffel she’d already put together to show Addie she was serious, are what she’s taking with her.

Addie’s packed and ready to go too, but she’s still clearly nervous. Soraya’s definitely convinced her to break some rules over the years, but those were school rules, hardly enforced at Watford. Far less adventurous than breaking orders from their parents. 

“But honestly,” Soraya voices while they take out their bags at the airport, Francis having offered to drive them once they realized what a hassle it would be to take their luggage onto a packed bus. It’s still early in the morning, the sun just rising. “It’s probably not even half as scary as they make it seem. Just because there’s no organized society of mages, doesn’t mean they’re savages. And the magickal creatures are just as abundant here, so it’s really no different than the drive to Watford.”

“A fair bit further,” Francis points out. “Don’t get yourselves killed, or Mum will have it out for me.”

Addie spends the whole plane ride stressing despite Soraya’s reassurances, as if the decision to agree to go without doing her own planning is finally catching up with her. It took longer than Soraya expected, really.

“We'll be fine with magic, I suppose, but there’s also the matter of the Quiet Zones…” Addie trails off, fiddling with the black fabric bracelet through which she channels her magic. For her part, Soraya has her wand which she’s currently keeping in her bag because she doubts she’ll need it right now. If she’s wearing the right shoes she tucks it in along her ankle, very Wizards of Waverly Place-esque. 

“What’re Quiet Zones?” Soraya asks, ripping open a pack of airplane tea biscuits.

“Where there’s not enough people, not enough language for us to draw on.” She doesn’t sound surprised that Soraya’s never heard of them. “They’re not mapped out, obviously, but I would guess from population maps that they’re only to the north.”

“Well, good thing we’re not going north, unless you really want to take a detour. I figured we’d just cut straight across, near the border.” Soraya had looked at exactly one (1) map, thank you very much, so as not to sound completely idiotic when they got there.

“Sure. Sounds good.”

“Look, Addie, if you want to go back just say the word. This is supposed to be a trip to enjoy ourselves before college work starts kicking our asses, but if it isn’t actually going to be fun for you, we can just take a plane right back home and spend the week in Manchester like we claimed to be.”

“No! No, I want to go, I promise. I’m nervous, yeah, but I’m always nervous. You know that better than anyone.”

“Okay, but whenever you want to turn back, you know I won’t hold it against you.”

“You say ‘whenever’ like it’s a given.” She doesn’t know what Addie means by that. The other girl is looking out the window at the sea of clouds, so Soraya can’t read her expression. 

“You know what I mean.” Soraya hopes so, anyways. “Well, it’s going to be a long flight. Wanna watch a movie?”

“No, you go ahead. I think I’m just going to rest,” Addie says, though she makes no move to get comfortable and close her eyes. 

“Right.”

Seven hours and two more packets of tea biscuits later, they’re in Toronto. Soraya wanted to start out a bit further to the east, but the Pearson International Airport was the only destination big enough to get two tickets for on such a short notice. She was extra lucky to get them two seats together. It’s when they get to the car rental place that the extent of Soraya’s planning ends, because she realizes that she didn’t bring enough cash to rent a wholeass car. Oops.

“You can wait here with the stuff,” Soraya tells Adelaide, indicating a bench outside. “Looks like the line is pretty long, no need for the both of us to stand in it.”

She nods and Soraya takes her duffel with her, pretending to rummage through it looking for the rental papers. In reality, by the time she gets to the front of the line, she’s grabbed her wand and has cast a whispered spell- **fool’s gold** is far too literal, but **strapped for cash** does the trick. The conjured money will disappear in a few hours, confusing the company, but visibly it’s just like regular Canadian money, in the same weird monopoly colours. She sends a mental apology to her parents, already breaking the big, bad ‘don’t steal from the Normals’ rule which is a given for keeping magickal society safe. It’s not so bad, she reasons, when no one has to know, not even Adelaide.

The man at the counter tells her that they barely have any cars available on such short notice. In turn, Soraya assures him that they don’t really care about what kind of car it is as long as they have just one that works. Neither of the girls know much about cars- Soraya doesn’t even think it needs good mileage, if she’s remembering correctly what mileage is. Addie probably knows a spell that will fill up the gas tank in a snap. Which isn’t much better than the fake money in terms of morals, probably, but fuck the fossil fuel industry anyways, right?

The car, when they find it in the parking garage, is a minty light blue colour and looks like something Soraya’s grandparents might’ve driven years ago. “It’s not that old,” Addie counters, “maybe more of our parent’s generation. Anyways, you chose it.”

“Yeah, uh, the description on the website made it sound a little bigger,” Soraya claims as they put everything in and squeeze themselves into the front seats, or rather the only ones. Soraya takes the first turn with driving. She’s driven in France, so she knows a thing or two about driving through the city on the right side of the road. 

Toronto actually feels less chaotic than the tight streets of France. It's slow going because of the traffic but Soraya’s having a pretty easy time of it until Addie asks, “Where are we going, anyways? How far west?”

Unsurprisingly, Soraya didn’t have a specific destination in mind. But where else to go except the first Canadian landmark she blurts out? “The Rocky Mountains would be fun.”

“Do you know how far that is?”

“What, you want me to tell you the exact number of kilometres?”

Addie rolls her eyes. “I meant, like, how many days?”

“A few. Enough.” Or not enough, considering that Soraya wants to spend as much time here with Addie as possible. “Why don’t you pull up a map on your phone?”

She does so as Soraya continues to drive, pretending to have a goal in mind but really just admiring the tall skyscrapers, glass towers reflecting the blue sky. “Oh, we need to get on the Trans-Canada Highway via the 400-N. It’ll take us all the way to the mountains, I think.”

“That easy, huh?”

“Looks like it. But we’re going to stop in some cities, right, not just drive non-stop?”

“Of course!” Soraya hadn’t really considered either option, but if they’re here to see the sights then she can probably find some good destinations on pamphlets in the next town. For now she just lists off the city names she remembers from looking at universities here- “We gotta see Winnipeg, Calgary, Whitehorse…”

“Isn't Whitehorse way to the northwest?”

“Oh, right! Montreal?”

“That’s to the east.”

“Fuck. Edmonton?”

“Close enough. Turn here!”

Soraya follows her directions out of the city, past the suburbs and then fields of crops that will soon be ready for the autumn harvest. Her job pretty much done, because Soraya can follow directions well enough (on road signs, at least), Addie turns her attention to the radio. The car is filled with loud static as she tunes the dial and it makes Soraya swerve just a little.

“Jeez, can’t you just play what you want from your phone?”

“That’s not the true road trip experience.”

“If this was the true road trip experience, you wouldn’t be magickally filling the gas tank.”

“I’m doing what?”

“I mean, you didn’t think we were going to pay for gas the whole way, did you? There’s probably not even many gas stations once we really get into the prairies.”

“Aya, that’s illegal! It’s basically stealing!”

Soraya chooses to not mention how she got the car. Even though she gave her the option, she really doesn’t want Addie to tell her they’re turning back already. Plus, is it really stealing? They’re not taking gas away from the gas station, they’re just not giving them money because they can make gas for themselves. “Who do you plan to tell, anyways?”

“Maybe I'll tell my other friends with better morals.” 

“What other friends?” Soraya is only half joking. She doesn’t mean to offend, it’s just a fact that Addie has trouble making friends because of her anxiety. As far as Soraya knows, she’s the only person Addie is in touch with from Watford. 

Addie doesn’t take to the comment too kindly. “You’re so insufferable.”

“Oh man, that’s a big word for a kid threatening to tattle tale on me.”

“Have you considered not being such a douche?”

What Soraya does consider is a comeback of ‘yup, but then I decided I needed to balance out your stick-up-the-ass personality’ but she holds her tongue. They’re good enough friends to be assholes to each other in jest, but she knows when she’s starting to take the joke too far. Well, she knows most of the time, anyways.

After a pause, Addie sighs. “Fine, I’ll fill the gas tank, if only so we don’t end up stranded on the side of the road because you’re being a cheapskate.”

“Hey, I'm just being economical,” Soraya shoots back.

“Oh, right, because the girl who spends hundreds of dollars on clothes every month wants to talk about being economical.”

“Okay, okay, I get it. Look, I just don’t want to use money on gas when we’re going to have to buy every one of our meals.”

Addie hums, finally settling on a classic rock radio station after all that. Soraya winces at the screeching guitar solo. She’s more of a hip hop person, but she’ll let Addie have this one, as an apology.

The highway is nothing interesting, but it’s calm and beautiful regardless. Nothing like the drive from their homes to Watford, which cuts through small towns and along the suburbs of Birmingham. Addie tries to get the air conditioning going since the clouds are starting to clear and the sun is beating down, but the flow of cold air is so weak it’s practically nonexistent. Soraya opens the windows and lets the wind rush in instead. Her own hair is safe from ruin since she put it in two high buns, but Addie’s shorter hair whips into her face and she struggles to tie it back. Soraya laughs at her attempts, feeling loose, and presses on the gas to urge the car along the winding road.

After about two hours of driving they glimpse water through the trees. Addie’s phone tells them that it’s one of the many bodies of water connected to Lake Huron, which is one of the Great Lakes. As Addie starts rattling off facts about the Great Lakes (“The acronym is HOMES, isn’t that neat?” She comments to which Soraya replies, “what are you, forty?”), Soraya decides to turn off towards a viewpoint. It turns out to be less of a viewpoint and more of a small town, named Parry Sound after the body of water it borders. Which is just as good, because it means they can get lunch and Soraya can hopefully walk off her jet lag. 

Lunch consists of cheap, packaged sandwiches and bottles of water from the supermarket. They get some snacks (“Oh my gosh, Addie, we definitely have to try ketchup chips”), chocolates, and other essentials as well. Soraya had planned to use her money sparingly, but she doubts it’s going to last too long like this. Well, it’s nothing that **a penny saved is a penny earned** can’t fix. Addie won’t be happy with breaking the Coven’s rule against stealing once more, though. This is less like the gas and more like the car in that it’s real theft to buy stuff. Well, if Addie wants snacks then she’ll just have to deal.

It’s a fair ways to the water from here, so Addie directs Soraya to drive them over a small bridge and through the network of streets. It's a larger town than Soraya first thought, and when they get near the water of Parry Sound and park the car, she feels relaxed and wistful. “It's a very ‘I'd like to move out here and spend the days fishing and forget about the rest of the world’ kinda vibe,” she says.

“You don’t know how to fish,” Addie observes, casting **nothing to see here** on their corner of the sandy beach so the people from the nearby sailing school pay them no mind. 

“I could learn. Or you could learn, and fish for me, and we could live in domestic bliss.”

“Well, the first step to living in domestic bliss is you accepting that I’m in love with you. Then maybe I’ll take up fishing.”

Soraya almost chokes on her sandwich. She takes a long swig of water, spilling some onto her denim shorts in her haste. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Are we going to go through this every time I say it?”

“Yeah, probably, because you can’t just say that! We already talked about this-“

“No, we didn’t.” She looks resolute, like she’s been thinking about confronting Soraya again non-stop since her first confession. “You spewed a bunch of crap about how you somehow knew my feelings better than me, and left me more confused than before.”

“Because I do!” Soraya, predictably, hardly thinks before she speaks. “I do know your feelings better than you, because you always have trouble with them, and I’m here to help. It’s, like, my job!”

“If being a good friend that gives advice is a ‘job’ to you, then we must be living in different universes.”

“That’s not how I meant it. I just meant that it’s, like, my role in this friendship. It’s my role to give advice, and my advice is that you’re not actually in love with me, you just don’t want me to leave.”

“Why is it so hard to believe that I’ve thought about this? That I spent time figuring this out before I told you? That I’m sure of this? If you don’t return the feelings, just say so.”

“I- What-“ Soraya splutters, trying to find the right words, but there’s not many ways to explain what she knows is true- Addie is attached to her, but she doesn’t love Soraya like that. Not the same Addie who helped Soraya get a girlfriend in seventh year, not the same Addie who had a crush on a boy in fifth. There’s no way- Soraya would’ve known before now if the girl she spends most of her waking hours talking to had fallen in love with her. “I told you, I do love you! I said it in the park. But it’s a platonic love, from both of us. Eight years of friendship and then a big change might feel like something scary, like something that needs to be romantic to last, but I promise, we’ll always be best friends. 

Addie takes a deep breath and exhales, shutting her eyes. “What will it take to make you realize that I’m brave enough to finally say what I feel with conviction?”

“I dunno, maybe any evidence at all?”

“What, do you want me to kiss you? I’ll do it. I’ve wanted to.”

Soraya laughs, because she knows Addie’s l-word feelings were complicated enough to take seriously, but this bit has to be a joke. “We’ve already kissed, dumbass! And it was to help me practice so I could kiss Jasleen on that second date!”

“Stuff has changed since then.”

Soraya stamps down her laughter at hearing Addie say that, the person who's never even changed her ice cream order, and finishes her sandwich. “Sure it has. All of a sudden I’m the love of your life, I get it. You stayed strong for eight years, but in the end you just couldn’t resist my charm.”

A small smile creeps onto Addie’s face and she shakes her head in a mix of amusement and something else as she goes back to her food. She still doesn’t look happy, there’s something still troubling her, but Soraya doesn’t know how else she can help Addie figure it out. She’s said all that she can say, done everything to aid Addie with her emotions. Well, Soraya could always kiss her, and that’d show her that she doesn’t really want to be with Soraya- no, bad idea. That would be leading her on and would just make her more confused. No kissing, for Addie’s sake.

Not like Soraya would mind, exactly. Addie is certainly an attractive person, and Soraya is very gay. But Soraya’s the one that’s leaving, so even if on some level that she has yet to discover Soraya does love Adelaide romantically, it could never work. A long-distance friendship and a long-distance relationship are nothing alike.

“Do you think if I threw the rest of my water bottle in, a water nymph might show up?”

“Huh?”

“I read it in a book,” Addie says, “some story that worked that way. Well, the water bottle was thrown into a dam, but it’s the same idea.”

Soraya's glad that Addie is choosing to keep the conversation light. The l-word is a bit heavy for the early afternoon. “You won’t know until you try! Though, it is littering, so won’t the water nymph just take offence?”

Addie shrugs. “The books never lie,” she claims, and chucks the half empty bottle as far as she can. 

It doesn’t go very far at all. Soraya snorts as it splashes into Parry Sound and says, “So much for domestic bliss after all. I don't think you’re going to be very good at fishing if that’s as far as you can cast.”

Addie turns in the sand to face Soraya, looking a bit put off by how just close the bottle had landed. “That’s not how fishing works, is it? Surely the line is much lighter and more aerodynamic-“ She’s cut off by a large dog leaping out of the water and knocking her onto her back, crumpled plastic water bottle in its mouth.

“Is that your water nymph?” Soraya teases, grinning. She’d seen the dog bound into the water when Addie had thrown the water bottle, but Addie had been too distracted by her theoretical fishing skills to notice. To be fair, Soraya didn’t think the dog would see them in the end through the spell Addie had cast, but you can never underestimate the power of a dog that wants to play fetch.

“I'm not going to send you running into the water without your owner around,” Addie scolds as she sits back up, brushing the sand out of her hair. The dog stares balefully at her anyways, until a few confused looking Normals show up and take the dog back to a picnic bench some ways away.

“I think you should throw the water bottle again, I'm sure I saw a glimpse of a water nymph. Just needed a few more minutes, I reckon.”

“Oh, shut up! We better get going before the chocolate in the car melts.”

It turns out the best way to keep chocolate from melting is to eat it, who would’ve thought. They have a hearty dessert before Addie offers to drive the rest of the way to Sudbury, where they can really start heading west.

Soraya reclines her seat back as far as it can go as they continue on, able to get a better view through the windshield. Through her sunglasses she can see the trees on either side of the road stretching upwards, reaching towards the chasm of blue sky between them. Canada is lovely in the summer. Or maybe it’s lovely all the time, Soraya wouldn’t know. She’ll find out if she stays here, if she really does leave England behind for good. It’s scary, but it would also be liberating. No more expectations from parents or the world- Addie can have those. She’s better with them, has her whole life on track. Soraya claims to be more put together one emotionally, but really- well, she won’t dig too deep into that thought, but she’s just trying to find a place for herself in the world. Somewhere she can be comfortable, with her blog and plants and pets, doing something she enjoys even if she doesn’t know what that is yet. 

It’s not the most inspiring or brave choice she could make, but at least Canada is a good place to run away to. One could go into the trees and never find their way back out. Soraya wonders if she and Addie will. She wonders if she wants to. Would Addie actually leave her here, if Soraya decided to cut all the crap and not even go home for the last three weeks of August, not even go to university after that? That’s the problem, isn't it- Addie wouldn’t leave Soraya behind. And she’s scared that Soraya’s leaving _her_. And she’s telling Soraya she’s in love with her and Soraya doesn’t know what to do with that, because Soraya’s trying to convince Addie that she’s wrong and confused but Soraya is starting to lose track of why. Why is Addie wrong, and why is Soraya starting to feel increasingly guilty every time she shuts Addie's confessions down?

The trees don’t have any advice for her.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! chapter two is on its way :)


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